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PF offices to be networked by 2005: Vishwanathan

A Vishwanathan, Additional Central Provident Fund Commissioner, said on Tuesday that Kota, Gurgaon, Hyderabad, Bangalore, Patna and Indore would be connected for networking by 2003 and all the provident fund offices in the country would be Net connected by 2005.

Addressing the Seminar on 'Proposed Amendments in Employers Provident Fund & Misc Provisions Act, 1952 and Its Impact on Industry' organised by the PHD Chamber of Commerce and Industry in New Delhi, Vishwanathan said that they were interested in expanding the base of Provident Fund by including the workers in the unorganised sectors in the Employers Provident Fund Act.

They were working on a model where special provisions will be streamlined and checks will be carried out for those units who are defaulting in contributing to the provident fund.

Vishwanathan said that they were also looking beyond small establishments and were trying to build an institution of filers who will do the paper job for the employers to fill in the forms of provident fund.

In this way they hope to reduce the substantial paper work for the employers.

He said that in India by the year 2025 persons who are above the age of 60 will be more than the population of Europe.

With this ageing population and the breaking down of the Joint family system there is a need for proper social security systems to take care of the persons who retire and the aged.

There cannot be a easy solutions to the problems which are area specific and occupation specific. The government was seeking a big change in the statue so that it could provide social security to the millions of people in the country.

Earlier, R P Jhalani, Chairman, Industrial Relations and Human Resource Committee, PHDCCI said that it has been strongly felt that instead of extending the EPF & Misc. Provision Act to the informal and unorganised sector, a separate social security scheme may be framed by the government to cover the workers in the unorganised and informal sector.

The small scale units which are the unorganised sector of the industry are working on very meager margins and have very tough competition with the larger industries. If any additional burden is put on them by way of contribution under EPF & MP Act, it would have a colossal effect on such units.

It is, therefore, strongly felt that units employing less than 20 persons are neither financially nor administratively in a position to bear the burden of extension of the Act, Jhalani added.

UNI

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